Kiwi balloons grounded in UAE after deaths

A Balloon Adventures pilot was jailed after an accident claimed two tourists' lives. Photo / Supplied

Peter Kollar has left United Arab Emirates in the wake of a fatal hot air balloon crash which saw his pilot sentenced to a year in prison, ordered to pay compensation to two tourists killed, and his company grounded.

Mr Kollar was director of a New Zealand company involved in a fatal ballooning crash in Canterbury 15 years ago, in which three people were killed. He was found guilty of flying his balloon in circumstances in which avoidable danger to life or property was likely to ensue.

Now, his Dubai company has been forbidden from flying as the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) continues its investigation into the April 25 crash.

Polish pilot Piotr Gorny was in charge of the balloon as it came in for an emergency landing about 50km outside Al Ain near Abu Dhabi.

Mr Kollar, who was not convicted of any offence, told The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi he could not comment on his pilot's conviction, as it was subject to appeal. He has left UAE, with no indication as to whether his departure was permanent.

Relatives of the victims told the newspaper that they felt Mr Kollar was partly responsible.

Tourists Jean-Pierre Chamignon, 53, of France, and Mukesh Shah, 56, of India, were killed as the craft hit the ground and dragged for hundreds of metres.

The family of each will get 200,000 dirhams ($79,000) in compensation, according to a source at the court.

Gorny, who was also fined 20,000 dirhams, was the only person convicted of any offence relating to the crash of the Cameron Z-425 balloon, operated by Balloon Adventures Emirates.

Mr Kollar is listed by the New Zealand companies register as a former shareholder and director of Up, Up and Away (MacKenzie) Ltd. He was also a former director of the Christchurch-based Balloon Adventures, Up Up and Away Ltd until 2006.

In 2004, a Christchurch court was told Up Up and Away Ltd had been the subject of 15 complaints to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) since 1992. These including flying in fog, clipping power lines and making unscheduled landings in the middle of suburban streets in the city of Christchurch.

Mr Kollar has previously said he was the victim of a vendetta by the New Zealand aviation authorities.

He took his Balloon Adventures company to the UAE about five years ago after a string of complaints about his New Zealand firm.

In the fatal 1995 Balloon Adventures flight, Mr Kollar was piloting a balloon that ditched in the sea off Waimairi Beach in Christchurch. Three tourists drowned.

After an initial sentence was quashed, he pleaded guilty to flying the balloon in circumstances where avoidable danger to life or property was likely.

He was fined $900, disqualified from flying for two months, and ordered to pay $1000 reparation for emotional harm to three of his passengers.

In April, he said his safety record since [the 1995 crash] was unblemished in thousands of flights.

He was not the pilot in the UAE crash and had not made the decision to fly, he said.

- NZPA